At present, it seems, the team doesn’t yet know the cause or full extent of the problem. As such, it’s not yet clear whether Keuchel will be able to return to help drive a push for the postseason, or appear if the team qualifies. Houston is all but buried in the AL West, but entered play today two games off of the Wild Card pace.

The 28-year-old Keuchel hasn’t been at his best thus far in 2016, as he carries a 4.55 ERA over 168 frames — well off of the sub-3.00 rate he maintained over the last two campaigns. Still, he has rated as a solid performer in the eyes of ERA estimators while maintaining quite useful peripherals (7.7 K/9, 2.6 BB/9, 56.7% groundball rate). With his average fastball lagging by over a mile per hour as against recent campaigns, though, Keuchel has been hurt by the long ball (16.4% HR/FB rate) — the same issue that plagued him before his 2014 breakout.

Despite the struggles, Keuchel remains a largely irreplaceable piece for the ’Stros, with the absence of Lance McCullers Jr. further amplifying the problem. At this stage of the season, especially, the club needs every quality inning it can get.

Both Luhnow and Hinch acknowledged that the timing of the injury raises the possibility that Keuchel won’t return in 2016. “I don’t know the answer to that,” the GM said when asked if the southpaw would make it back. “I don’t think anybody really knows the answer to that.” As the skipper put it, “where we’re at on the calendar, it’s going to bring the obvious questions, but we just don’t know right now.”

Efforts to address the inflammation have not yet proven successful, Hinch explained. Keuchel first had pain in his last start, on August 27, and experienced discomfort when he tried to throw on Sunday. And attempts “to give him some gaps in time in giving him some rest periods … hasn’t solved it,” said Hinch. Ultimately, the manager noted, Keuchel will not be allowed to resume throwing “until he’s pain-free.”

The biggest question, perhaps, is whether a deeper structural problem is at play. That’s completely unknown at this point, though more information may become available once Keuchel undergoes a full examination by medical professionals.

Even if he can dodge a broader issue, the injury is likely to cost Keuchel some arbitration earnings. He won’t reach 200 innings for the third-straight season, only has nine wins on his record, and will be weighed down by the sub-par earned run average. Of course, he is working from a monster first-year arb award of $7.25MM, which obliterated prior high-points for first-year arb-eligible starters, so Keuchel will remain a major arbitration earner in his second season of eligibility.

Could you please link me to these hard and fast rules and regulations designating 1-5?

I thought they don’t exist and instead were just up to whatever hackneyed interpretation of them that changes fan to fan?

Also, we really need to stop with this. Especially since injuries can make a #1 be the 4th guy in the rotation. These 1-5 designated strictly have to do with playoffs, and barely any teams make the playoffs so its almost always moot to even talk about.

When personal stats and qualifiers are decided by the entire team, it’s time to do away with them altogether. Bad pitchers can be a #1, Cy Young winners can not be the first guy in the rotation. How about we rate pitchers based on how elite they are instead?

Can you tell me how I was a “troll”, how I was stupid? Because who’s the one that predicted Keuchells down season? Your just here to defend your team, your not a baseball fan, your just an Astros fan, which is fine.

Lol you use no facts at all and you can’t back up anything you say. And idek what your talking about when you say “talking crap” about other teams. Btw I got banned because I argued with a writer. I said that Racism should not be allowed in comments but he diddnt seem to agree with my choice of words.

Its called regression to the mean. Anyone with an understanding of statistics would have predicted Keuchel’s return to Earth this season. The truly amazing cases are the Kershaws of the world who somehow seem to defy it, which is why they are so extraordinary.

What stats are you looking at? Also stats cant predict injuries, like he had this year. Keuchel has also not had the same excellent defense behind him, which resulted in a higher BABIP than last year. He’s also still pretty darn good, he’s at 2.7 fWAR this year after 26 starts, which is about a 3.5 fWAR over 33, like he had last year. He’s had 5 rotten starts this year (6+ earned runs), if he gets that down to 2 or 3, that’s elite again. Doesn’t take much to get him back to where he was last year.

The guy is just fatigued. Since 2014 he’s tossed 600 innings not including the playoffs. As of yesterday Felix is at 564 innings since 2014. I know he’s been around longer, but give the guy some credit. He burst on the scene and bamboozled the league. He’ll be fine. If they make the playoffs I got a well rested Cy Young winner.